Movie Review: Song of the Sea

Unusually enough for me, I actually saw this film in a theater in one of the last weeks it was in DC (the Angelica Pop-Up which was a nice theater but in a borderline sketchy part of DC, got nervous when a bus passed me heading for Capitol Heights, you do not go to South-West DC if you can at all help it). I really wanted to make the effort to see it on a big screen considering how much I loved the visuals in The Secret of Kells which was also made by Tomm Moore/Cartoon Saloon and the art in the trailers for this film looked gorgeous. But actually watching it made me realize that seeing something on the big screen just isn't that much of an improvement for me, it was nice but I feel like I could've gotten the same impression if I had watched it on a nice tv back home.

Song of the Sea

Movie Review: The Snow Queen

Disney's Frozen is many things and not being very faithful to the original story is one of them. We all know that by now, actually I think everyone figured that out by the time a talking snowman showed up in the trailer, and that surely Disney isn't the first studio out there to take the story from the page to some sort of stage. It turns out there are quite a few of them, I might have to check out some of the others but I remembered hearing about one a few years back which was a Russian animated film that was taking a while to get out to the US. Well it finally popped up on Netflix a couple of months ago and, since it's been a few weeks since I last talked about an animated film (and it finally warmed up for a few days here), it seemed like the perfect chance to watch it!


The Snow Queen

Movie Review: Frozen

Initially I had no intention of seeing this movie and my list of reasons why was pretty long. From the fact that, in retrospect, the marketing was terrible (someone has to reassure me, and I had to do it in turn afterwards, that the snowman actually wasn't this terrible character who ruined the movie), compared to the original story (a girl saves a boy and goes on an adventure to do it!) the summary for it (a girl must save her sister from becoming evil and a guy helps her do it!) sounded rather, uninspired. The character designs also rubbed me a bit the wrong way, both the fact that Anna and Elsa looked like they were Rapunzel's sisters (especially once again compared to the original designs, plus there was a comment from one of the staff about having to constantly make the girls look pretty which didn't sit well with many) and the reminder of how many stories we get about cute, young white characters and so few about non-white ones (the This Could Have Been Frozen tumblr both has some really cool art and for me was a reminder of how rarely you see non-white characters as leads in traditional American media). So why did I try it after all? Because at the heart it's a, non-romantic, story about a relationship between two sisters and that's a kind of story I want to see and I was hoping that the story was strong enough to make up for all of the things I just listed.

Frozen

Summary: Anna and Elsa are sisters in the kingdom of Arendelle and while Anna is a happy, outgoing child Elsa is a bit more withdrawn and quiet, terrified that she'll hurt someone with her strange ice creating powers. When she ascends to the throne her secret slips out and she accidentally turns their sunny, summer land into a winter wonderland and Anna has to set out to apologize to her sister and bring her back so that everything can be set right again.

The Good: That was a way better story than I was expecting, hurray! Unlike what I predicted Elsa has not turned evil and it's up to Anna to use the power of love to restore her heart, nope Elsa is just a combination of scared and embracing the new freedom of not being where she can harm people (and as many people have pointed out, this is one of the rare times where a Disney film has shown that the parents, while well-meaning, were certainly wrong). The movie questions the idea of love at first sight, makes it clear that familial love is just as important and great as romantic love, and actually has a plot twist that caught my theater by surprise (I figured it out once the movie started but Disney waited just late enough that I had started doubting myself so kudos to them). I liked Anna and Elsa's character arcs and felt like the story stayed true to itself by the end, this wasn't supposed to be some very very silly comedic story, it's a fun story with plenty of funny moments but at it's heart it's about two sisters and it remembers this all the way to the end.

The Bad: Really, whoever was in charge of the marketing (in the US anyway) did a terrible job at getting across the real mood of the film, if I hadn't looked up reviews and heard some good word of mouth I never would have seen it this soon. As for the movie itself, I felt like it dragged on in one or two points in the last third/half (especially since this was when there was a time-specific plot point) and there were times when Anna/Kristoff felt like a little too anachronistic compared to the rest of the cast (as much as I like Anna and I'm sure tons of little girls feel like she's just like them she feels a bit like they were trying really hard to inject bits of a "modern teen/pre-teen" into her).

The Production Values: I heard the song "Let It Go" before the movie and wasn't sold on it but somehow when it played in the movie it just worked. That was easily my favorite song of the film but I thought that everything sounded fine. I know some people on tumblr have been up in arms about some moments of shoddy animation but even when I stared at the cam-rif-gifs of the scene in question I still couldn't spot it so I feel like I can say that the movie looked pretty good too. Still not thrilled that Anna and Elsa have easily the most boring faces in the entire film (as I mentioned earlier that just felt like, well, a cop out considering what's previously been done in animation) but the rest of the designs (character, clothing, and setting wise) were rather pretty.


For being actually a really good movie and having the kind of plot I've wanted in a story for years I'm giving this film a 4 out of 5 and just hope that Disney A) Actually changes the faces for the female characters in their next film and B) Realizes that just because you have one black/Middle Eastern/Asian female lead of a film doesn't mean you should wait another five, eight, or more years to make the next film (and for god's sake you can put them in the backgrounds too, non-white people appeared in the background in just ONE scene!) 

Movie Review: Wreck-It-Ralph

First off really fast, my blogging schedule. I'm going to try and get a review up every day this week with the Tuesday and Thursday reviews being the books I should've covered last week. After that I'll go back to the special five-a-week schedule (regular four posts+an extra book one on Wednesday so I can cover everything I've seen/read this year before midnight, January 1st), now to see if I can actually pull that off with exam week....

Got a chance to see this over the Thanksgiving break with some friends and I went in cautiously optimistic that I would like it. I was amused at how Disney was making a more Pixar-esque film (in terms of plot and art) and how Pixar had made what was literally a Disney Princess movie this year, an interesting switch but after seeing Brave I was already convinced that Disney got the better end of this deal.


Wreck-It-Ralph

Summary: Ralph is the villain of the video game Wreck-It-Ralph where he destroys an apartment building until the games hero, Fix-It-Felix Jr swoops in to save the day and Ralph is thrown off the building. After 30 years of this he's rather tired with his position and wants to be accepted (not feared) by the other characters in the game and when one casually says that if Ralph had a medal they'd accept him he's off playing through other games for a medal. But of course it's not that simple, crossing games is allowed but frowned upon and if he's gone for too long his own game might get canned and then everything will be ruined for good!

The Good: Wow, there were more references and puns in here than you could shake two sticks at, I'm sure once the movie comes out on DVD/BR that plenty of people are going to be going frame through frame in some scenes to see all the easter eggs. The story wasn't especially inventive but it worked fine, Ralph was sympathetic enough to be likable and the humor worked well, from the self-referential bits to the situational humor I enjoyed it a lot. Also, I'm getting dangerously close to a spoiler so that's all I'll say, I'll admit I didn't watch a lot of trailers so I might have just missed this but the PR people did a really good job keeping a bit detail from the climax from leaking out and (while it was foreshadowed well enough that I wasn't surprised, the way a good story should be) it's been a while since I didn't have a really good guess how the movie would go when I started watching it and I enjoyed that.  

The Bad: I was a bit unhappy with the climax since I thought I knew what was going to happen and then the movie did something different which I thought was much more predictable and boring*. I found it a little odd that the theme of the movie seemed to be "accept yourself and you'll be happier" (considering that Ralph had a good reason to be unhappy in the beginning) but I guess I'll give Disney the benefit of the doubt there?

The Audio: Not much to say music wise here, I had heard Owl City's credit theme before the movie but thought it worked a lot better with the movie than on it's own oddly enough and didn't really pay attention to the rest of the soundtrack. As for the acting, I feel like I'm going to get in trouble for this but I didn't like Vanellope's voice. It wasn't badly acted, the opposite actually, but her tone was really grating for me and I wish it had been just a bit different so it was more bearable. Didn't have any real opinions on anyone else, all of the acting was just fine, I simply have a lower tolerance for high pitched, squeaky female characters than most cartoon fans it seems.

The Visuals: I liked how they translated Ralph's 8-bit world into a more fleshed out 3D world yet still gave it a similar visual style (like the characters' jerky ways of moving around). Everything in this movie looked great actually, I already talked about the truckloads of easter eggs that were dumped in which I think helps sum up how this movie looked, it was super detailed and well thought out design-wise (at the very least) and I would catch this movie again with friends just for a chance to see what I missed the first time around.


Oh and some quick thoughts on the Paperman short before the movie (since I saw a lot of people saying they liked it more than the movie itself): eeeeeeeh. It's a romance and a romance in less than 10 minutes, there's a limit to what you can do there and (as an un-romantic person, comparatively speaking) that means there's a limit to how much I'll be amused by it. I do really like the art style they used, it was a combination of 2D and 3D which looked a bit rough in places but overall was rathe nice and I wouldn't mind seeing more shorts (or a feature film) in that style, just not a romance please.

In any case, as I said, I'd see the movie again to look at it but otherwise I think I'm good. Don't have a burning desire to rewatch it/buy it, although I will recommend it to people who haven't seen it yet and like animated movies, I'm just not as passionate over it as I am over other things. Hmm, now that I think about it, I wonder what movies Disney is putting out next year, the Monster's Inc prequel (which good lord came out when I was in elementary school) and I wonder if there's anything else....


*since this involves the climax of the movie, SPOILERS. Basically I thought the way they would clear out all the bugs would be to have Vanellope cross the finish line which would reset the game, fix everyone's memories, and kill all the bug easily. I can understand why they instead made Ralph have an (almost)heroic sacrifice, he's the hero of the movie after all, but instead of having a girl save her own world they had an outside guy come in and do it, hopefully that phrasing explains why I was miffed that the movie took a much more boring way out. 

Movie Review: Tangled

Initially when Tangled came out I had no intent to see it since it was yet another Disney princess movie and I haven’t been really interested in those for a long while now (yes I did see The Princess and the Frog but that was more because it was hand animated). But, partially after seeing this post on Sounis (comparing a main character from A Conspiracy of Kings to one of the main characters in Tangled) and partially because it was playing at school (as I’ve said before, I see a lot of movies here because it’s really hard for a movie to not be worth at least the $1 admission) I saw it recently and ended up enjoying it more than I expected.

Tangled

Summary: Long ago, Rapunzel was the new born princess to a happy king and queen but circumstances of her birth made a witch steal her away and lock her up in a tower, raising Rapunzel as her own child instead. And while she is content with her life in the tower she does long to see the floating lights that appear in the sky every year on her birthday. So when a thief comes to her tower to hide she bullies him into taking her to see those lights and ends up with more of an adventure than she expected.

The Good: From all the trailers I thought that Flynn was the main character (which apparently was the intent of the trailers) so I was happily surprised to find out that Rapunzel was instead and that she was a pretty capable lead*. However, I loved Maximus more than any other character in the movie (actually, the trailers made me think that he was Flynn’s accomplice, not a villain of sorts) and every moment he was on screen was hysterical. A lot of the physical humor was funny actually, I laughed quite a bit and I'd certainly recommend the movie to friends for those gags alone. I was entertained when I saw this movie and that should speak for itself

The Bad: Not my favorite Disney movie (or even Disney Princess movie, Mulan is still my favorite) and Rapunzel acted fairly immature for being 17 or 18 in the movie, wish Disney had just made her 15 or 16 in that case. And I have to admit, one of the early songs with Rapunzel singing about all the things that she did all day (very traditionally feminine things she does all day) just rubbed me the wrong way. No I have nothing against women who enjoy doing things like cooking and cleaning all day (I'm just not one of them) but I felt like Disney was saying "Look at her, she'll be the perfect wife for someone soon!" Just wish she had been a little more, active in her activities, especially considering how active she is in the story later on. Bascially, the horse really was my favorite character and I just didn't like Flynn and Rapunzel as much as I could have.

The Art: I found this post (and this one) after I saw the movie and I’m really amazed at just how much detail the animators managed to stick in this movie. That’s a definite plus to CGI movies I suppose, adding in extra detail without taking up extra time, so I’m glad to see Disney taking advantage of it. I didn’t particularly like Rapunleze’s character design actually (I’ve always thought that Disney eyes are really big, yes this is coming from the anime fan) but the whole movie looked very good.

The Music: I had forgotten that, since this is a Disney Princess movie, that there would be a lot of singing in it. I didn’t really like any of the songs (which is odd, usually I like at least one of the songs in these movies, as silly as I feel admitting it) but nothing really clicked with me here. Well done music for sure, big orchestra that was well composed but nothing that I loved.


So, I don't have the urge to run out and buy this movie now but I am happy I saw it and did really enjoy parts of it. But I never was as fond of princess stories as other girls were (heck, as a kid I was making up stories about my stuffed animals, especially the bears, and my favorite fairy tale was a toss up between the girl disguised as a boy who saved the prince and the cat and dog who saved the day, I'm just not the target audience here) and I'm still not as fond of them now. Although, I do have the urge to re-read Talking with Dragons now after all the frying pan humor, hmmmmm.



*I approve of having a frying pan as a weapon by the way, ended up reminding me of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles quite a bit and those are some of the books that got me into fantasy in the first place.

Movie Review: Up

Sorry about not posting yesterday, my mom and brother came up to celebrate my birthday (well, a day early since it's actually today) and between that and studying I just didn't have much free time. Actually, I usually post on my twitter if I'm not going to post (and I post all my updates there) so feel free to follow me, I don't post much outside of updates so I swear I won't spam anyone's twitter log.
So the movie I've got today is Pixar's Up which I never saw when it came out a few years ago. But I always heard a lot of good stuff about it and Netflix had it streaming so hey, why not?

Up

Summary: Carl always promised his wife Ellie that someday they would visit Paradise Falls, after falling in love with it after seeing the famous explorer Carl Muntz report on it as children, but they never got the chance before Ellie passed away. So, fed up with developers moving in around him and telling him to move out, Carl attaches a couple tons of balloons to his house to simply fly away instead. But traveling to South America isn't going to be that simple and the tag along Wilderness Explorer (Russel) is the least of his problems....

The Good: Lots of cute little details in this film (making fun of scouts, the dog's voices going strange, all the running gags) and I certainly cracked up more than once. I didn't notice any aimed-at-the-parents humor in this film (there probably were one or two that I just forgot) but it's a good movie for the kiddies. Nice change of setting and the whole premise of an older guy moving his house was pretty new (actually, you don't see that many older protagonists in kid's movies anyway)

The Bad: Geeze, that was the most stereotyped plot line I've seen in a movie in a loooong time. Enter the protagonist who is a good guy but currently not so happy, cue the plucky younger and/or female character who teaches the protagonist how life is worth living again (even though the protagonist has to give up their raison d'etre in the process) end of the movie. So the whole plot is my main complaint with the movie. Yes there were nice details within it but it was such a paint by the numbers deal that I just felt bored.


The Music: It's Disney so lots of orchestral music, a bit of jazz, and the period music at the beginning was a nice touch. As I've said before, music is something I notice more on a re-watch, not in the first viewing so I don't have much else to say about it. But I did really like the little bits of jazz sprinkled in the movie, never understood why I like jazz though.


The Visuals: After seeing Toy Story 3  I'm a little disappointed at the graphics here. There was nothing wrong with them per-say, but seeing something so cartoony after seeing how well Pixar can do humans now I just didn't like the CGI as much. It was pretty colorful though, just not my art style.

So, Wall-e is still my favorite recent Pixar film and with such a predictable plot I don't get why this movie go so much praise. Yes it did the predictable plot well but still, bleh, I just wanted to get more out of it. Hopefully when I see Tangled later this week that'll be more to my liking but not holding my breath over that.

Movie Review: The Secret of Kells

When I really got into anime four years ago I was only interested in Japanese animation and didn't bother to look at animation from the rest of the world. After all, I had been generally unimpressed with American animation for years and didn't know that much about animation from the rest of the world, but recently I've become curious about what the rest of the world is producing. The funny thing is that I still find out about most foreign animation through anime websites like this movie. I believe I heard about it when it was nominated for an Oscar, looked at the trailer, thought it looked fairly cool, and then forgot about it. But recently I was browsing through Netflix and came across this streaming and got around to watching it with my mom and I think we both enjoyed it.

The Secret of Kells

Summary: Brendan is a young monk in an abby in a remote village in Ireland who wants to become an illuminator. He clashes however with his uncle, the Abbot Cellach, who is obsessed with building a wall to surround the village and protect it from Viking attacks. 

The Good: The movie has a much more cohesive plot line than I thought which, while basic, works and makes this a movie, not just a very nice looking series of images. Upon browsing tvtropes I discovered a lot of little details in the movie I hadn't noticed earlier (like a lot of references to Irish fairy tales and poetry) so this was a well thought out movie as well. Also, I remember when I was a kid I could always find a fantasy or two set in Ireland but that's not the case these days so it was nice to have a little nostalgia moment while watching this. I can see myself enjoying this movie as a kid (even if it would've scared me a bit*) and being able to recommend a movie to a wide range of age groups is a good thing.

The Bad: One thing that did bother me about the movie was how most of the movie seemed to take place over a few days and then towards the end there's a five or ten year time skip and then the movie ends. It's a bit jarring, if necessary, and I really don't know how to pace that bit better but it did seem odd. There were also a few things about the movie, mostly small references but one or two things considering Aisling as well, that I didn't understand until I looked them up. This isn't a bad thing per say, but people who are big fans of Irish mythology are going to enjoy this movie more than someone who isn't.

The Art: If you're watching this movie, chances are you're watching it for the art and it's very interesting to look at. I'm not sure if the whole movie is CGI or a CGI/traditional animation combination but the animation itself has a different kind of movement to it than I'm used to seeing in either US or Japanese animation. The art itself is very stylized and detailed while still using very basic shapes (visually the most similar thing I can think of is Kemono no Souja Erin/Beast Player Erin's more stylized sequences) and is simply gorgeous. I would recommend this movie to people based on the art alone and wouldn't mind buying this on Blu-Ray just so I could stare at the imagery again.

The Music: I didn't notice that much music in the movie actually, I'm sure there was plenty of background music but I was too distracetd by the visuals to hear it. The one bit that stood out was Aisling's song about Pangur Bán and while that was a neat song I didn't really get it until I discovered it was partially in Gaelic (well, I still don't understand what she was singing but point made). If I saw the movie again I'm sure I'd notice the music more but the visuals really outshone it. 

Sorry if this review sounds a bit disjointed, I've had a headache for most of the day so it's a little hard to focus but I really wanted to get this review done and out of the way. Originally I was hoping to get two done today and tomorrow but it looks like that won't be happening. I'll get at least one done tomorrow and fingers crossed that it'll be two but no promises!


*But honestly that's more because I was easily freaked out as a kid, you'd laugh if you heard how long Fern Gully gave me nightmares....